I Didn't Realize Soon Enough
by CharlotteBlackwood
Summary: Oneshot sequel to Kiss & Tell... Requested by XxXUniqueInHerWayXxX, most of the plot was her idea and i just filled in the gaps and wrote the tale, so I hope you all enjoy!


**A/N: This oneshot is in honor of XxXUniqueInHerWayXxX, who came up with the general idea. It's a sequel of sorts for Kiss & Tell, my super-short Sirius/OC story (honestly, quick read, and I recommend you read it before reading this. It's only three chapters and they're tiny). Enjoy! Totally out of my… well, no, only partly out of my typical comfort zone.**

**-J**

Sirius buried his face in his bony hands. Dumbledore had promised to help him, but how? What could he possibly do? The Minister was never going to believe in his innocence without producing Peter, especially since Snape had been so adamant that he had confounded the children and Remus, poor Remus, was wandering somewhere in the forest, searching for food. Sirius was doomed.

"Is it really you?" said a familiar voice, causing Sirius to start. He looked up into the pearly face of someone who looked like someone he used to know, but it couldn't be…

"Christie?" he whispered. "Christie Crawford?"

The ghost nodded, looking at him.

"They told me you were here," she said calmly, "but I hoped it wasn't true. You don't look the same. You look… dead."

He snorted humorlessly.

"You're one to talk."

Then he frowned again.

"How did you die?" he whispered, suddenly realizing that she had to have died if she was ghost. "What happened?"

"It was a couple of years ago," she said casually. "I was working in a brothel in Albania–"

Sirius sighed.

"Why doesn't that surprise me?"

She scowled at him and said, "I do believe in love, you know. I just… I just didn't realize it soon enough."

"Soon enough for what?" he asked.

To his surprise, she reached out with one of her transparent hands, causing a chill to run over his cheek and she whispered, "To tell you that I loved you too."

Sirius could hardly believe she said it. Christie Crawford had never believed in love. She had broken his heart and ripped it to pieces and he'd spent years trying to move on without success. But all that time… she'd loved him?

"Anyway," she sighed, "I ran across Quirrell in Albania, who had been a Muggle Studies professor for a while and I'd read that he was taking sabbatical so that he could become the Defense teacher. He… well, he was acting odd, and I realized, when I heard him talking to himself in a dark alley, that he was actually talking to someone he kept calling 'my Lord.' And I contacted Severus, who was friendly with some of my employees, and he said he suspected that Quirrell had become a Death Eater. He asked me to come to England and give my information to Dumbledore, but Quirrell caught onto me, and when I got here, came up behind me, dragged me into an empty room and strangled me. He threw my body in the lake, but nobody even realized I'd arrived until I found Severus and he realized I was in ghost form. By then, it was too late. Quirrell was dead, but Voldemort nearly got Harry."

Sirius blinked.

"And, when was this?" he asked.

She shrugged.

"About two years ago. It's not very interesting, being a ghost. I wish I hadn't done it, but there was nothing for me to go on to, anyway. You were still alive and I couldn't face Lily and James and… well, I wasn't always the nicest person, but you knew that."

He snorted again.

"Christie, you were never a very nice person."

They smiled at each other, wry, empty smiles and Christie finally said, "You're going to be fine, Sirius. They're not going to take you."

"What do you mean?" Sirius asked, confused.

"They're not going to take you," she repeated. "Your soul is fine. Go look out the window."

Sirius went to the window and saw the approaching hippogriff with Harry and Hermione coming toward the window of his prison. He turned to ask how Christie had known, but she was gone. Sirius was alone again, but he didn't have time to think about it, to dwell on it, as Hermione Granger unlocked the window and the glass opened up to the night air, to his temporary freedom…


End file.
